Missing Pieces - Chapter 31
Hailey
Wednesday
I wanted to believe him. But how could I trust him over a cop? Tyler was in trouble. He was on the run. And I should have been running away from him. My feet had an idea of their own though. They seemed frozen in place.
I knew grief. I knew suffering. And that's what was all over Tyler's face. Not guilt. I knew him. It was crazy and fast, but I did. Tyler wasn't capable of killing someone. He was good. He was so good.
"Can I hear the whole story?"
"I'm trying to forget, Hails." He turned away from me.
I dropped my duffel bag back on the ground and walked over to him. "It's easier to forget if you get it off your chest." I slipped my hand into his.
He looked down at my hand. For a second, he let his fingers intertwine with mine, but then he removed his hand and scratched the back of his neck. "It's simple, really. I fell in love with a girl. She fell in love with someone else."
"I don't think it's that simple."
He sighed. "Actually, it kind of is. Do you know their story at all?" He gestured toward the TV.
An image of Penny and James Hunter was still on the screen. I grabbed the remote and switched it off. "I know that he was her professor. That's pretty much it."
Tyler sat down on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, well, Penny and I met in his class. I was a senior, she was a sophomore. I had been going through some things and for some reason, she just made me smile. I needed that." He looked down at his hands, which were clasped together.
I wanted to know what things he had been going through, but I kept my lips sealed.
"She led me on. Or maybe I led myself on.
I don't even know anymore. She kept telling me she was getting over her ex and that she just wanted to be friends.
But she didn't act like she just wanted to be friends.
It was always more than that." He shook his head.
"She flirted back. It wasn't one sided. It never was.
But the whole time I was falling for her, she was actually dating James.
She was falling for James and lying to me about it.
Lying to everyone. And when I found out, I was so pissed.
I stopped talking to her. And it sucked.
I was depressed again..." his voice trailed off.
Tyler was quiet for a moment. "They broke up a little while after that.
She completely disappeared inside of herself.
She was just this wisp of the person that I loved.
And I couldn't stand it. I told her we could be friends.
Because it killed me to see her hurting.
I told myself that I could be okay with that.
But then it was there again. That feeling that it was more.
And it was. For one night, she validated all my thoughts.
I let myself think that there really could be a future between us.
That she'd get over him. That we could be together. "
He shook his head. "The very next day, she got back together with James. And maybe I'm a fucking idiot for just letting it happen. But she was happy with him. He could give her a life I couldn't."
"You mean the money?" Suddenly it all made sense. Why Tyler seemed so upset that I was in awe of Josh's place.
Tyler looked up at me. "It was easy to fixate on that.
But I know it was more than that. She just didn't like me.
" He looked away from me again. "No matter how much I liked her, it didn't change that fact.
So I just accepted it. I told myself I had to move on.
I applied for a job in New York and was excited to move away when I graduated. But then they fucking moved there too.
"Penny and I got into this routine of being just friends. It was easy. I just liked having her in my life. I guess I kind of repressed my true feelings for her for years, though, because when they called the wedding off, all I wanted to do was tell her."
I hadn't known that they had called the wedding off. I was surprised the tabloids hadn't picked up that story. I swallowed hard.
"I told her how I really felt. That I had always loved her and that I always would. She told me that she'd always love him."
I pressed my lips together. He'd always love her?
"Even if they never got back together, Penny said she'd never move on. She said she could never love me." He sighed. "That's it. I'm the biggest fucking joke."
I sat down next to him on the bed. To me it sounded like Penny was a tease.
Running to him whenever there was the smallest problem in her relationship with James.
Which was fine to do if they were just friends.
But clearly it was more than that. She had to have known that.
And I hated her for hurting him. Even if it wasn't intentional.
"But why are the cops coming after you?"
"Because James' ex wife is a psychopath. She's trying to set me up."
"Why?"
"I don't know. To break them up or something. She made it look like I stole money from them. And when that clearly didn't work, the psycho shot him. I have no idea why they're looking at me."
"So on the news when they said it was Penny's ex and best friend?"
Tyler shrugged. "Me and Melissa I guess. Which is crazy. I would never do anything to hurt Penny and neither would Melissa."
"And you broke up with Melissa because you realized you were still in love with Penny?"
"Yeah."
"And now you're traveling across the country to get away from all of it?"
Tyler didn't say anything.
"Why aren't you going back, though? If James dies..."
"I'm done being second. I'll be there for Penny as a friend if she wants, but nothing more. And I meant what I said before, Hails. I'm where I want to be. These past few days with you have been some of the best I've had in a long time."
"Me too." I took a deep breath. "I think I've been accidentally putting myself in a similar situation."
"What do you mean?"
I looked up into Tyler's baby blue eyes.
"I'm falling for a guy that will never love me as much as he loves someone else.
" A tear trickled down my cheek. I lifted my hand to wipe it away, but his hand beat mine.
He brushed away my tear with his thumb. It felt more intimate than any other moment between us before.
"I've been holding on to my feelings for Penny because it feels like I'm drowning when I don't have them. But it's not because of her. It's because of my own problems. I don't want to feel the way I do. I want to move on." His eyes searched mine.
"We can heal each other."
"That's the thing, Hails, I don't think you need healing. I think you need someone as whole and full of energy and life as you." He brushed away another of my tears.
"I think that maybe I just need you."
"You don't need me." He pressed his forehead against mine. His words and actions contradicted each other so fiercely. Like he was telling me no but beckoning me forward.
I breathed in his breaths. He tasted so sweet.
Every second with him was better than any I had ever experienced before.
"When I'm with you, I feel like everything's going to work out.
Come back to Indiana with me. Please, I don't want this to end.
Your heart is bigger than you realize. There's room for me too. "
"I can't."
"Why?"
"When I left New York I felt like I needed something to hold on to."
"Hold on to me."
He brushed my tears away again. "If I could, I would. I'm falling for you. All I want to do is stay right here with you and forget the world."
That's what I wanted too. But the world wasn't stopping. And I was running out of time to save my dad. "Stop time back in Indiana."
"I joined the Marine Corps."
I lifted my forehead off his. "What?"
"I needed to make a change. It seemed like the right choice."
For some reason I couldn't process his words. "I don't understand. You joined the marines?"
"I'm heading to California because that's where basic training is."
Oh my God. It felt like my heart was beating out of my chest. "When do you have to report?"
"Friday."
I shook my head. "This Friday? As in two days from today?"
He nodded.
I was completely speechless. So that's what him and Josh were talking about when Josh said he only had a few days of freedom left.
"I'm sorry. I should have told you sooner. I've just been trying to clear my head on this trip. I needed to not think about it the whole time."
"But last night...it seemed like you were going to come back with me. Tyler, I meant what I said. I'm falling in love with you. I don't just say that all the time. I mean it."
"I'm falling for you too." He touched the side of my face. "For just a second I wanted to believe it could be more."
"This doesn't mean it can't be."
His hand fell from my cheek as he stood up. "It does."
I stood up too. "No, it doesn't."
"I signed up for three years. We've known each other five days. I'd never ask you to wait for me."
"Then don't ask me. Let me make my own decision."
"I wasted three years of my life pining over a girl who didn't reciprocate those feelings. I'm broken, Hails. You deserve so much more than that. I wouldn't let you wait. Not when we don't know what we even have. Three years is a long time. I would never do that to someone."
I know what we have. And I had two days to show him what I already knew. That we were two pieces of the same puzzle. Cast aside. Lost. Second. I knew how he felt. I knew what it was like to not be good enough for someone.
Proving to him that we could be more would take my mind off the nerves dancing around my stomach as we got closer and closer to Pasadena. It gave me something to hope for. Something big and scary and so wonderfully exciting. I hadn't had something like that in my life for a long time. "Okay."
"Okay?" he asked.
"Let's just enjoy our last few days together then. Let's make the most of it. A grand send off for you."
Tyler smiled sheepishly. It was probably the cutest thing I had ever seen.
"As long as you promise you're not a criminal."
He laughed as he stepped toward me. "Unless what I'm about to do to your body is criminal."
"It depends on what you're going to do."
I laughed as he picked me up over his shoulder and carried me toward the bathroom.